The law straddles almost every aspect of daily life. Lawmakers hope to change everyday behaviors so that societies, markets and environments are safe. For lawyers, it may be relevant to look at what people do in their daily lives and how they react to the rules. Exploring everyday life can help unravel some of the behavioral mechanisms. Empirical jurisprudence is one of the legal subjects of the Leyde Law School within the framework of the sectoral plan of law, the other is the institutions for conflict resolution. The empirical legal studies project is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) as part of the multiannual legal sector plan. The Dutch Academy of Empirical Legal Studies (ELS Academy) serves as a platform that brings together (emerging) empirical lawyers from all universities in the Netherlands. The ELS Academy, which embodies national cooperation in the field of empirical jurisprudence within the framework of the Sectoral Plan for Legal Discipline, focuses on training and supporting researchers interested in researching empirically relevant questions. Under the Legal Sector Plan, the Netherlands invests in innovative empirical legal research and academic talent. New research groups have emerged in the various law faculties, in which lawyers often collaborate with social scientists and conduct interdisciplinary research. Among those who want to conduct empirical legal research, two main profiles can be identified. The first is a traditional jurist who needs to learn empirical methods.
The second is a social scientist who needs to become familiar with pressing legal issues and relevant research questions. What are the challenges that each of these types of scientists faces? Are there any risks associated with non-traditional research and, if so, which ones? Niek Strohmaier will present his views on the issue as a “psychologist turned lawyer”. Gitta Veldt will offer her point of view as a traditional jurist immersed in the world of empirical research. Expect an interactive session with lots of discussion between all participants. The Dutch Academy of Empirical Studies in Law has launched its website: www.elsacademy.nl. The ELS Academy was founded by the five law faculties of Leiden University, VU Amsterdam, Utrecht University, Erasmus University Rotterdam and Groningen University. The ELS Academy serves as a platform that brings together (emerging) empirical lawyers from all universities in the Netherlands and beyond. By answering empirical questions, research in this legal topic provides basic elements for answering normative questions about market regulation.
Therefore, the emphasis is on the interaction of empirical and normative questions. Empirical research on law in action provides essential information about the behavioural assumptions that underlie various legal norms. Empirical legal research, including applied economic, psychological and sociological research, has added value not only for empirical “what, when and how” questions, but also for normative questions “and what do we think about them”. The objective of the ELS Academy is twofold. On the one hand, the focus is on bringing together empirical lawyers and building an ELS community in the Netherlands. On the other hand, the ELS Academy pools resources in the field of empirical law and makes them easily accessible to individual researchers and research groups in the various law faculties in the Netherlands. Helen Pluut studied organizational studies and obtained her PhD from Tilburg University (Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences). She has been associated with the Leiden Law School since 2016 and heads the Laboratory of Empirical Legal Studies at that faculty. She has mainly published investigative studies in the field of organizational psychology. Your posts can be found on your personal profile page. Het doel van de ELS Academy is tweeledig. On the one hand, the emphasis is on bringing together empirical-legal researchers (and termes de formulation), or “community building”.
The activities of the ELS Academy always have a learning objective. On the other hand, material is developed and bundled that provides for the training and support of empirical-legal researchers. These resources are offered on the website of the ELS Academy. Peter van der Zwan discutera des paramètres de recherche longitudinale lors de la première session hybride en ligne et hors ligne de la série Empirical Methods in Legal Research à la Leiden Law School. Les paramètres de recherche longitudinale font référence à des ensembles de données de panel, c`est-à-dire des ensembles de données avec des observations répétées pour la même personne, la même entreprise ou le même pays. For example, individuals can be tracked for different years to retrieve information about their perception of the legal environment in their country and how it has changed over time. In his presentation, Van der Zwan will present various methods of analyzing panel (or longitudinal) data with legal applications. Our goal is to shape and strengthen legal and behavioral skills in a market context. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we explore the law in action and the underlying assumptions of legal rules. Our empirical studies together aim to discover how regulations and laws can shape markets in a fair and equitable way.
Helen Pluut (Department of Business Administration) discusses journal studies as an example of multi-step research designs in a hybrid online and offline session of the Empirical Methods in Legal Research series. Research in this jurisprudential field is diverse, both in terms of topics and the empirical research methodology used. The objective of our research is the empirical examination of legally relevant issues. Using quantitative and qualitative methods, we rightly look into action and study what works. Empirical research on the functioning and impact of the law in practice provides fundamental information about the (behavioural) assumptions underlying various laws and regulations and can help achieve the legislator`s objectives. Dit speerpunt draagt bij aan het opleiden en ondersteunen van beginnende empirisch-juridische onderzoekers. The aim is to enable more researchers from different faculties to ask empirical questions and provide them with the empirical “toolbox” to answer these questions. New research groups are set up in the different faculties, in which lawyers and social scientists in particular meet and work together (interdisciplinary). With the growth of young scientists, a new generation of empirical and legal researchers is emerging who are advancing empirical and legal research in their faculties.